


Magnum Opus

by Nicole Crucial (moilArchitect)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moilArchitect/pseuds/Nicole%20Crucial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose has been working hard on her masterpiece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnum Opus

You let the fluffy violet towel slide down your hips and pool on the floor, dipping one long leg into the huge ivory tub in front of you. The water is nearly boiling hot, just the way you like it, and the copious amounts of bubble bath smell like warm spice and pumpkin, as you deem appropriate for when summer fades and leaves begin to darken and fall. You sigh and practically melt, sinking deep into the water and bubbles until they tickle the backs of your ears. Your aching muscles sigh with you and you feel the tension drain like a wave falling away from the high-tide mark.

It has been a very long day, full of haggling with publishers to keep in-tact as much of your original impenetrable prose as fiscally possible, and trying to schedule Dave's magnum-opus SBaHJ film into your book-signing and TV-show-appearing agenda, to name just a few activities. You lead a hectic life, or at least you do every time you debut a new cinder block that passes for a novel (though you suppose they usually fall more into the "epic" category, for length and heroics alone), and especially when this happens at the same time Dave releases a new movie or Jade publishes another groundbreaking scientific study or John goes on tour with his comedy act. It's hard to balance all this. It's hard and no one understands (except maybe perhaps your friends who have to balance all the exact same things).

It's all worth it in the end, though, to be alone in a quiet bathroom where your every breath echoes pleasantly on the tiles. Quiet is not something you get a lot of--

And the reason why is doing a very bad job of trying to sneak in the bathroom from around the corner. Though you are a Seer at heart, you are not deaf, and that stupid old door creaks like a cacophony of sickly frogs. You sigh into the water and watch breath-bubbles pop on the surface, then smile a curious predatory smile with your teeth.

Perhaps he's trying to be romantic, and this will be a happy-ending kind of steamed-up bathroom.

Hoping that this is the case, you rise up out of the foam just enough to tease, lean your head back, and close your eyes.

You are promptly rewarded with a shirt flung at your face and a snort-giggle, and you freeze for a long moment like a proud peacock not quite able to believe that it's been shat upon.

Then you calmly peel the blue garment from your face and level an eyebrow at John, who is butt-naked, has Casey in his arms, and in one horrifying instant, literally jumps into the bath tub.

_"GERONIMO!"_

_Oh my god._

"John!" you say sharply, now soaking wet to match the entire bathroom, mildly horrified. You are also mildly surprised that the water level is still high enough for this to actually be considered a bath, and that there was not very high of a casualty rate among the bubbles. John, lanky and lean as he's been since puberty, grins his goober buck-teeth grin at you and has his big piano hands wrapped loosely around an ecstatic yellow salamander situated between you.

"What? Casey needs a bath," he points out, "and you need to loosen up, so I thought maybe we could be a family for once? You're kind of busy a lot, if you haven't noticed. Casey is starting to feel neglected!"

Your initial irritation softens into a faint thrum of guilt squeezing your chest. John has his puppy look plastered all over his face, and while you know that he is probably 100% serious about Casey's feelings, he is also kind of talking about himself when he speaks of neglect.

You _have_ been really busy. It's a sacrifice you've had to make for your art, but…

"Remember how we agreed I'd take a couple months off touring and you would take it easy on the wizarding after this one?"

You do remember promising that you'd go easy on this one, take more time to focus on the two of you. So much for that. You slick your hair back, darkened with wet, and lean against the curved edge of the bathtub. Casey, attracted as she is to soft things, climbs in your lap and decides that your breasts would make a lovely pillow, and John snorts with laughter and cracks a stupid joke. You could think of a couple other lovely things involving them that could be happening right now, but this is a "family moment" and so you push those thoughts away for the time being.

"It's not a book about wizards," you say finally, leaning your neck against one arm and looking at him with half-hooded eyes.

"Oh yeah? You never let me see the draft," he says, busy crafting quite an impressive beard out of bubbles.

"Mm," you say. "And I guess that's why I've unwittingly bloated it into a full-scale project--a magnum opus of my own, perhaps--instead of keeping it low-key as I earlier agreed."

He looks interested now, leaning forward a bit and even abandoning his bubble-beard to fall to ruins. "C'mon, Rose, just spill."

You give a little smile, but genuine and not predatory, and gently lift Casey off your chest and set her down on the wet floor, giving her a little pat on the tail to send her moving around the corner and out of the bathroom. John looks a little bewildered, but then you sit up fully to lean in and kiss him slowly, softly.

His fingers curl in your wet hair and you trace circles into his triangular chest with long nails.

"I suppose that when we said we were going to 'focus more on the two of us,' I took it literally," you say.

His eyes go from dreamy blue to something darker--touched, interested. "You mean… your masterpiece is about us?"

There's another long kiss that heats just as the bath water cools.

"John," you whisper on his lips, "my greatest achievement _is_ us."


End file.
